Ok so we are not quite at the end of the year, and are currently hosting several Australian school teams in Borneo,  but this week we staged our end of year party for all staff.  Its an annual tradition to get together and have some fun, usually centred around some dancing (both cultural and “modern”) and some singing (normally a mix of dreadful and amazing karaoke renditions).  This year there was the added twist of fancy dress (super heros meets cultural attire) – more about that and some embarrassing pictures in another blog I am sure!  So we managed to get nearly all our camp staff down into Kota Kinabalu (which is no mean feat!) for the evening and had circa 60 people present.  Normally the gathered crowds have to endure a speech from yours truely and this year was no exception – although i thought this year i would keep it simple with a summary of the year in numbers.  I have copied it here for people to see the size of the operation we are now running in Borneo:

Total number of pax coming through Borneo = 764

Total number of days spent in our camps = 14,936

Total number of days spent working on our projects = 7,613

Total different nationalities = 19

(Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Belgian, Australian, British, Pilipino, American, New Zealand, Botswana, Ghana, German, Bruneian, Japanese, Indian, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Malaysian, Korean)

Total welcoming and leaving dances danced = 117

Litres of water drunk = 59,744

Meals cooked = 44,808

Rubbish collected from beaches on Mantanani = 320 kg

Litres of air used doing scuba diving = 98,600

Trees planted = 8600

Money spent on our community projects = RM 97,300

Money spent in direct support to these projects & locally within Sabah = RM 2,850,000

There are some pretty juicy numbers here and it illustrates the hard work the team have put in this year as well as some of the great achievements we have done.  And whilst the figures are impressive my main message to the team was not to loose that little special something that everyone experiences when they come to Borneo – that special feeling of being part of the family, part of the community, mucking in and sharing those great little moments with people.  Thats what makes Borneo such a special place and the staff we have such mind blowingly awesome people – they work hard of course but they are willing to share and welcome people into their lives and families.

 

 

 

Mel has already written about the teacher recce to Borneo last month but I wanted to add a few pics and thoughts from the trekking element of the trip.  It appears that scuba diving is more popular and not many schools sign up for jungle trekking – I am not quite sure why – if you’re coming to Borneo surely you have got to try some jungle trekking (having said that our dive teams do get some jungle time but its not same if you’re not carrying your life on your back for a few days!).

So I was lucky enough to split off from the main group with a small team of hardy jungle trekkers –  Lizzie, Ben, Matt and Clare – accompanied by our illustrious jungle expert Mike and carefully driven around by the one and only Fendy!

We departed from KK in a leisurely manner, the divers having left at “sparrow’s fart” several hours earlier to catch their boat, and meandered our way up through the stunning scenery to the base of Mt Kinabalu.  I have driven this route so many times I sometimes forget to take in the stunning scenery – and even after many years it is still stunning, with long views across to the mighty Mt Kinabalu, the lower foothills, steep slopes covered in thick jungle and low lying cloud in the valley bottoms below.

We arrived at Sabah Tea in time for a gourmet lunch and the obligatory glass of locally and organically grown iced tea.  We then checked out our accommodation for the night (a huge long house in rooms or 2 and 3) and prepped for our afternoon’s jaunt along some of the jungle tracks.  The aim was to give the teachers a taste of what it is like to walk in the jungle – and boy what a taste they got!

Right on queue, literally 30 seconds after stepping out of the van and onto the first section of the trek, the heavens literally opened – and we are not talking a meagre UK style shower – we are talking full on torrential tropical downpour.  We were soaked to the skin within a minute.  There had been much discussion earlier about waterproof jackets and their varying effectiveness – those wearing them put them to the test – the verdict? The winner =  a cheapo poncho which allowed for some air circulation, covered the rucksask if necessary but also went down below the waist and hence a dry crotch.  And so we trekked onwards and upwards, experiencing the full jungle effect in 2 hard but highly enjoyable hours.  The jungle effect?……Lashing torrential rain……slippery tracks……carrying a rucksack and squeezing through and past fallen trees across the track….far off thunder and lightning making us feel exposed on our hill……discussion and worry initially about snakes but quickly forgotten….leeches (oh yes and well done to Clare who mastered her fear and pulled two off other peoples bodies without so much of a shake, shiver, quiver, scream or delay!! )……thirst and dehydration……dirty butt from slipping over……the joys of the team becoming stretched out along the trail and the back becoming separated from the front….(slow down at the front!!)…..getting soaked through to our knickers……the life saving and “crotchly” benefits of talc….a great sense of achievement afterwards….serious appreciation of the hot showers on return to the longhouse (well the boys appreciated it, the girls showers were cold apparently, hehe) and above all else a fantastic sense of camaraderie.  We had only known each other for 24 hours but already had endured more than most and had bonded via our joint adventure.  Its difficult to put into words or to explain to those who don’t experience it, but this is why jungle trekking and its hardships are such an awesome experience.

 

 

The remainder of the 24 hours together whizzed by and it was like we were in the company of old friends.  We took the tour at Sabah Tea and became experts on detecting cheap non organic imitations.  We climbed up into the trees to see the canopy from above at Poring Hot Springs.  We ate ice creams.  We saw a blooming Raflessia flower (the largest flower in the world) and we ate roti with egg and curry and drank stewed tea.

It was great fun and I felt privileged to once again get out from behind the desk and realise what an awesome place the jungle is.  Thanks team trek! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing that 2011 was the UN International Year of the Forest we at Camp Borneo wanted to mark this with a special event, afterall we work alongside a number of communites whose daily life is a constant battle between habitat loss and reforestation programs. Forests and in particular the magical  and highly endangered Rainforests of Borneo are very much close to our hearts. So much both on a localised and global scale, depends on their survival  we thought it was important that we did something to support the campaign. But what…?

As is often the case the answer was much simpler than we first thought. Why go all out for one big event when a more elegant gesture would say so much more. “Lets plant as many trees as we possibly can!” And so we asked our freinds and colleagues at Batu Puteh and Sabah Tea to review our plans for the tree nurseries and reserves for the Camp Borneo Summer Team season through July and August to see of the targets could be stretched slightly without impacting the longer term programs. “Sure” they said, we can give it a go… How about 5000 trees?

Now to me 5000 trees sounds like a lot. That’s a potential forest in itself, OK, perhaps a wood… But could we possibly plant that many in 7 weeks? Well, as it turns out… yes. And more. Our 15 UK school teams over a period of 7 weeks built a tree nursery from scratch, cut back and managed a huge area of previously de-forested and now reclaimed land, collected thousands of seeds from exisiting forests and in total planted 5800 trees! Trees which will be managed over the coming months and years and will eventually be a part of an ever growing new forest that will be an important wildlife corridor on the banks of the Kinabatangang River.

It’s an amzing achievment, one we’re really proud of, but the work doesn’t stop here. Our future volunteers will help manage these saplings and their enviroment as well as the trees we have planted over the past 3 years and the many more we will plant in the future. The community at Batu Puteh and our friends at Sabah Tea are at the forefront of a battle we (humans) cannot afford to lose and our volunteers are making a significant impact in that battle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So we’d like to say a big thanks to all our volunteers this summer who have made a huge difference in such a short space of time. Hop to it people, go plant a tree somewhere…